The historically deadly mass shooting at a Florida gay club on Sunday has drawn new attention to a New Hampshire used car dealership owner’s special promotion offering a free AR-15 with every car purchase.
“Nobody cared about it ‘til this week,” Mike Hagan, owner of Hagan’s Motor Pool in Rochester, told TPM Friday in a phone interview.
Hagan said he reconsidered the “Buy a car, get an AR” promotion in the wake of the Orlando shooting, given that the gunman, Omar Mateen, used a spinoff of that weapon, a Sig Sauer MCX, to kill 49 people and injure 53 more.
But Hagan said the groundswell of support in his gun-friendly corner of the state convinced him to stick with the promotion.
“Having spoken to many community members and customers after the fact, they supported me continuing to do it. So I’m going to do what my community wants,” he said.
According to Hagan, the Rochester area has a “high population of veterans and gun enthusiasts.”
Hagan’s Motor Pool has given away four AR-15s and one 9mm handgun since the promotion began on May 12. A gun store nearby partnered with the car dealership to provide background checks to customers who agree to the promotion, which Hagan said has been “so well received.”
As a former combat medic in the army and a gun enthusiast himself, Hagan said he believes that the renewed attention paid to gun control in the wake of the Orlando massacre was somewhat misplaced. He voiced a version of the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” rationale.
“If you want to build a bomb, you’re gonna build a bomb with stuff right out of Wal-Mart. If you wanna fly planes into a building, you’re going to do that too,” he said. “We can’t make every instrument of death illegal. I mean, we’d have to ban kitchen knives. There’s plenty of ways we can fashion weapons so to blame an inanimate weapon for the actions of one man with fury and hate in his heart is, I don’t think, appropriate.”
Hagan said the promotion will continue through August 31, though if it continues to be successful, he’s open to extending it through the fall.
“We’ll change that firearm we’re doing, just to keep it fresh,” Hagan said. “Not for any particular reason like we’re pulling the AR-15.”
